Knowing Better
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How a Knowing Better Video is Made
🕑 Added 2019-11-14 21:06:03 +0000 UTCMany of you have asked about my process over the last few months, so I figured I’d finally write something to that effect. This is *in general* of course, every video is different.
I have a running list of suggested topics and ideas, but oftentimes, I am thinking at least a video or two ahead. While working on the Healthcare video, I’d occasionally think of a story I wanted to tell in my Veterans video, so I would write it down and hope the notes make sense a week or two from now – it doesn’t always work out that way unfortunately.
By the time I’m actually ready to work on that topic, I usually have a decent idea of what the video will be about, but again, that isn’t always the case and sometimes I have to start from zero. The Armenian Genocide is a great example – that was on my list forever. After I finished the Marco Polo video, I wasn’t sure what to do next. So I consulted my list, figured it would be a good time to do that topic, and got to work. I’ll only hit a topic if I think I can bring something new, I have a different perspective from what I’ve seen, or the video I want to make just doesn’t exist yet. I’m not interested in rehashing the same topic someone else has already done – occasionally it happens, but again, I like to think I come at it from some other angle.
I very rarely pick a topic that I know nothing about already. I usually have some sort of base knowledge or a skeleton to work with. I start asking myself questions, what do I personally want to know about this topic? What do I think is important to know? Take the healthcare video for example. What is the difference between an HMO and PPO? Do British people really pay more in taxes like I’ve always heard? Where is the line where not having insurance is actually cheaper? This video was somewhat unique because I had to change focus halfway through – I really was figuring out how much $3000 stitches would cost under an HMO, under a PPO, under Medicare. But every time it was a huge, often overlapping range and I realized I needed to rethink my strategy.
Often, the hardest part of the research and outline process is figuring out what NOT to include. For the MLM video, I deep dove into a dozen or so MLMs, figuring out what they sell, how they profit, what their rank and bonus structure is, all of that. But I couldn’t make a video talking about a dozen different companies – and many of them are similar enough. So I made a list of each MLM and what they have that makes them unique. Herbalife recruits people mostly so they can get the discount themselves. Young Living does the same, but to a religious extreme, and it replaces all your normal products, not just your morning protein shake. Tupperware is actually legitimate and legal. Stuff like that. I threw out all the research I did on companies like Cutco/Vector, Mary Kay, Scentsy, and a few others.
In my research, I try to answer those questions and try to understand what THEY are saying – not what others are saying about them. For the MLM video, I didn’t watch people bashing MLMs (I had seen that for years at this point). I watched them. I listened to what they say to each other, how they talk about it, what the company tells its distributors. I did a similar thing for the Scientology and Sovereign Citizens videos – by the end, I could watch one of their insane ramblings or secret interviews and understand just about every codeword or business lingo they use. If I don’t, I pause it and look it up. Watching Tom Cruise, whoa he just said he lives and breathes KSW, what is that… *types* oh okay it’s the policy LRH wrote about defending Scientology at all times – “Keep Scientology Working.”
That’s generally how the process works. The closest time window I can give you is that it takes about a week of research for every ten minutes of final footage – so a 20 minute video is two weeks, a 30 minute video three, etc.
Either during the research process or while I’m brainstorming the next video – while working on the current video – I will start thinking about what I want the video to physically look like. Am I using costumes? Makeup? Props? If I need to buy anything, or special order uniform name tags or something, I try to get on that as quickly as possible. There have been several occasions where I’ve had to delay filming because a prop didn’t arrive on time.
I write in three phases. The initial rough draft, which can be written in one sitting if I’m really motivated, or spread across 2-3 days, where I just get the main points out there and in a decent flow. Then I comb over it again, fixing any tense issues, making sure it all flows into each other, and adding in any anecdotes or clarifications that I wanted to include but didn’t the first time. Then I usually share the script with a few people – whether they be people in my discord, other youtubers, or people I think know much more about that topic than me. For Dante, I asked an actual pastor and religious scholar to look it over. For Feminism, I had multiple LGBT creators take a look.
Writing usually takes 2-3 days in total, maybe a week if it’s an exceptionally large or complicated script. Filming can be anywhere from 1-3 days depending on how many costume or location changes there are.
I do all of this myself, the set is an actual room in my apartment so it’s not always set up or clean. I mean, it’s liveably clean, but it’s not “let’s film a youtube video for thousands of people” clean. I’ve gotten to the point that I have a page in my notebook with all of the measurements for where the lights and camera should be, so that I can quickly set it up and be reasonably sure it will look correct. Although I’m still working on that – during my Veterans video, the lighting was perfect when I was on Camera Right, but the shadows made my eyes look strange when I was on Camera Left. Something most of you probably didn’t notice at all. I’ve been putting more effort into the set lately, with lit up shelves behind me that I try to put relevant props on. The posters are changing to things I’ve recently referenced and are special non-reflective frames. Little things like that which don’t add to the content, but still serve as a little extra.
I don’t use a teleprompter – although I do have one. The only video I used it for was Slavery’s Scar – and it was so painfully obvious that I was reading that I deleted all of the footage and started over in the style that I still use to this day. I look at my phone, read a sentence or two, look at the camera and say it, rinse and repeat. I film all of the segments where I’m sitting in the center of the frame, then all the left, then all the right. Unless there are costume, makeup, or prop changes, that messes with the order. The first thing I film is often the conclusion of the video.
I can film about 1000 words an hour and my voice usually gives out around 4000-5000. Most of my scripts lately are 6000+, which means at least two days of filming. I generally know how long a video will be by the word count – I speak around 200 words a minute in my youtuber voice. So a 1500 word script would be ~7:30, a 6500 word script would be about 32:30.
A video is made three times. When you write it, when you film it, and when you edit it. I post my final scripts to Patreon, with all of the highlights and script comments that tell me where to sit, if I’m holding anything, etc. But many people have pointed out that it doesn’t always match the final product. Maybe when I’m saying it out loud, “should” sounds more correct than “could.” Or I realize I need another sentence in here because of an anecdote I forgot about until just now. The sentences about the Blood Chit being unclassified and getting rid of it off camera, for example. Or, while I’m editing, I might realize that a paragraph is really out of place, changes the tone of the video, and either needs to be moved or removed. There was a whole segment about nomenclature and what the difference between an F-16, F/A-18, and A-10 are which ended up being cut.
Editing is where most of the magic happens – usually when I get to this point all of the jokes I wrote are no longer funny. But now that I can add the sound effect, or image, or music stop, it’s funny again. Editing likewise takes place in three phases. The first phase is by far the worst, longest, and most mind numbing. I have to go through the 2-3 hours of footage, put them in order, and cut together the right takes. I’ve gotten to the point where I can usually tell if a take is good while I’m saying it, so I don’t have nearly as many bloopers as I used to – I usually only say a line once or twice. But occasionally, Writer-Me thinks that a sentence like “If you were a republican” will be easy to say at Youtube speed, and he is sorely mistaken. That step takes at least a day. Listening to myself over and over, no colors, no music, trying to figure out if the take where I emphasize THIS word is better than the one where I emphasize this WORD.
The next step is a lot more fun – when I get to add the pictures, text, jokes, and effects. If the rough cut of me talking is the meat, this is the potatoes. I have a number of templates made for different text at different sizes and positions, so I don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time, but in just about every video there’s something I need to make special. Whether it’s a corner text box with three lines of text or the sizing I usually use covers my face. The third pass is the music, which is more complicated than just throwing something in an audio track. I cut the music when something funny happens, when something serious happens, or when I’m showing a clip of something else. I’ll also shift the music around if the natural tempo picks up in a place where I don’t want it to. This entire process takes 1-2 hours for every final minute of footage, the Veterans Day video took around 40 hours to edit across three days.
Around this time I’ll film the ferrets playing or doing something cute for the end card, get all my patron names, write all of those in order and delete/change people who don’t want their names in there at all, and watch my video several times in order to make sure the timings and spellings are all okay. I used to be better about this, but I’d upload the video to Patreon for them to review and spot mistakes. If the mistake is something big, like a tax calculation being wrong early one, I will take the video down and fix it. If it’s something small, a misplaced apostrophe for example, I’ll usually only fix it if there’s something else as well. Rendering and uploading takes 3-4 hours, so a mistake needs to be worthwhile.
All of my videos have mistakes in them, it’s unavoidable. I can check things a hundred times, ask experts, have my patrons see it, and something will always slip through. The CW5 rank in my Veterans video is out of date. Blue Cross is a non-profit insurance company. Tea tree oil is a disinfectant – you can find better disinfectant in a gas station bathroom, but it is a disinfectant nonetheless. How severe these mistakes are changes on the viewer… most of you probably don’t think those are worth fixing. But if you are a retired Chief Warrant Officer who works at Blue Cross, you probably think I’m just the worst person on the planet.
I don’t do premieres, I just release the video. Which isn’t as simple as just pressing a button. I upload the video unlisted and let it process so HD is available. If I have time to sort out any monetization issues, I try to, but that doesn’t always work. The Armenian Genocide video is permanently demonetized. The Veterans Day video was demonetized on Veterans Day, but the remonetized later. I add the end screen, which I shift around depending on what footage of the ferrets I have, I add cards referencing past videos (or cards on old videos pointing to this one), and the captions. Since I have the script and it’s mostly word for word, as I edit it along with my video, it’s pretty simple to copy paste it into Youtube’s auto-transcribe feature. I add the tags, hashtags, and all of that relevant stuff, make a thumbnail, and it’s ready.
Once the video is out, I make sure it’s posted to all my social media and start interacting with you. Whether in the comments on Youtube, twitter, reddit, or wherever, I try to stay engaged with the audience for the first day – answering questions, responding to feedback, all of that. I taper it off over the next few days, take a few days to not think about Youtube, and then I repeat the entire cycle all over again.
All of this gets more complicated if I’m working with someone on a guest segment or getting people to read quotes – or if I’m doing the same. You might have seen me pop up on some other channels in the last few weeks (check my “Appearances Elsewhere” playlist) and even filming small segments like that takes a few hours of work.
I was also surprised to find out how much work a Youtuber needs to do outside of just making videos. Maintaining connections to other youtubers, keeping up with their work, responding to feedback, sponsorships, appearances, travel… reading other youtubers’ scripts, staying active in the creator community, responding to your emails (which I can only do a small fraction of), posting to twitter and Instagram, all of that is “work.” It’s how I pay the bills. So while it may seem like a fun life, and it definitely is most of the time, it’s also a busy life.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and support me through all these months. I’m ready to take a few days off and then repeat the cycle.
Comments
Russell Jack
From a retired Navy guy, I’m impressed. You’ve become a real professional. Keep up the solid content and I’ll keep recommending an ex army guy’s videos to my Navy buds.
Dragi Raos
Thanks for sharing - it is good to have some perspective on how much work goes into your videos. While it is obvious they are thoroughly researched, we viewers are not aware of many "peripheral" things that are a part of being a good Youtube creator.
Will Latinette
Thanks for the very detailed description. I suspected there was significantly more real WORK in running a channel like yours than it might seem to us 'consumers'. Thanks also for the great, informative and interesting content!
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